Jean and I lived less than two miles from Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado when that infamous shooting occurred. I was at work, and Jean was at a bus stop about two blocks away from the shooting. She saw personnel in fatigues with rifles running in a nearby field toward the school.

We live in Bailey now but were staying overnight at Jean’s parents’ place in Lakewood during, and about 12 miles or so from, the newly infamous Aurora shooting in the early minutes of last Friday, July 20, 2012.

Here are some random thoughts of mine on the Aurora tragedy:

1.) It takes only one person, for good or evil, to affect a nation.

2.) Citizens pull the strings of their elected representatives, not the other way around. The President moves to our citizens’ pain, as does the governor, the mayor, the members of Congress and the city officials–not the other way around. That’s why you saw President Obama, all of Colorado’s congressmen and many of our states elected officials in Aurora yesterday.

3.) “… the peace of God … passeth all understanding …” Phil. 4:7.

4.) “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” Rom. 12:21.

5.) Regardless of all of the hindsight-rhetoric of people now saying that we need to pay more attention to those close to us who may seem dangerously troubled, and report them, the police will generally not respond until shots have been fired or blood has been spilled. Besides, we do not need to expand citizen surveillance.

Mental illness should absolutely become a priority of medical staff and lawmakers of this nation–indeed of our world at large–given the proliferation of causes for mental illness within a world seemingly gone mad and seemingly with no long-vision concern for advances in technology and weaponry that increasingly and exponentially allow what Alvin Toffler, in 1970, called “Future Shock” and what I would now term a “present and sophisticated madness.”

What exactly is the character of “The Joker” in the Batman series but a sophisticated and intelligent madman hiding behind his mask–a self-assured, clownish smile? Our society, now more than ever, allows for such a fictional character to seem to step out from behind the theatre screen and into a very painful reality, as just happened at the Aurora Century 16.

6.) Violence is not a joke. There are those in our society who justify violence, like the Occupy Wall Street practitioners who act just as smugly (burn cars, businesses, property; and injure law enforcers) out of an amused sense that they are more sophisticated and intelligent than those who don’t agree with them politically, and that they don’t have time for pleading their case non-violently. Violence is not a joke, whether a democrat, republican, liberal or conservative or whatever.

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp could have chosen numerous ways to approach their remake of Dark Shadows. The original show was absolutely loved by all who followed it, and it’s still a cultural document that characterizes the pivotal period between 1966 and 1971. Yearly conventions have been held since the show went off the air. Books are still being written about it.

Dark Passages by Kathryn Leigh Scott

Instead of translating that love into what holds people together during dire circumstances and fears and supernatural questions and frights–maybe the path that The Sixth Sense took, or even the Twilight Series, or anything with a serious framework, Burton and Depp chose the absolutely most innane approach possible–to make silly fools of the characters and of the whole 1970s culture that followed the demise of the show.

Why they would choose to poke fun at what was a revolutionary concept at the time–a soap opera about vampires, witches, werewolves? This was almost 50 years before Twilight and Underworld, and it was scheduled on TV for exactly the time when kids got out of school. That’s right, I said kids. Here was a show with fangs and blood and murder and stakes driven in hearts, and kids were running home from school to watch it on public TV (there was no cable at the time), and most parents not only let us but watched it with us. There were no videotapes or DVR’ing then; it was a time of the day we lived for–not for a laugh-fest, but to communally immerse ourselves into it.

School’s out! Rush home to the TV little kiddies.

There was nothing campy about it to us. At the age of 11 – 16, I and others saw it as an alternative universe to the one we lived in–the one in which Malcolm X was shot to death in a church a year earlier in 1965 by the Nation of Islam with both a sawed-off shotgun and two handguns for preaching unity between blacks and whites; the one in which the terrorist SDS (Students For A Democratic Society) were crafting improvised explosive devices (IED’s) and razor blade studded potatoes to ethnically cleanse the “blue meanies” of society that they hated, in the name of peace, love and happiness.

Dark Shadows at least made sense in that Barnabas was evil because of a curse placed on him by Angelique. Why was the Nation of Islam evil? They weren’t cursed by Angelique. Why were the SDS supposedly fighting for peace, love and happiness, and yet they were killing and maiming innocent people. They weren’t cursed by Angelique, were they? Maybe I missed something back then. The world of Dark Shadows made sense in a way that our own screwed-up world didn’t.

You would think that Burton and Depp would have had the vision to put two-and-two together to make an important statement instead of a silly juvenile laugh-fest.

On February 21, 1965, in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X began to speak to a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. As Malcolm X and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Two other men charged the stage and fired handguns, hitting him 16 times. Shabazz was in the audience near the stage with her daughters. When she heard the gunfire, she grabbed the children and pushed them to the floor beneath the bench, where she shielded them with her body. When the shooting stopped, Shabazz ran toward her husband and tried to perform CPR. Police officers, and Malcolm X’s associates, carried him to a stretcher, and brought him to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Angry onlookers caught and beat one of the assassins, who was arrested on the scene. Eyewitnesses identified two more suspects. All three men, who were members of the Nation of Islam, were convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.

The Nation of Islam supposedly stood for God and yet they were shotgunning those who veered from the party line–those like Malcolm X who saw a nation inclusive of blacks and whites. The SDS supposedly stood against war and for peace and yet they were bombing and maiming their opposers. “Helter Skelter” and “Gimme Shelter” indeed! Sorting it out then was almost impossible. Who were the good, the bad and the ugly? In Dark Shadows, you knew the answers.

Tribune Archive Photo – October 9, 1969: Chicago Police Sgt. James Clark shows one of the weapons used by [SDS] demonstrators [during their “Bring Home the War” Days of Rage], a potato studded with razor blades.

Sorting it out now leads one into the territory of political incorrectness, because it’s the remnants of the SDS who largely advise our government now [ see http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0629df.html ] and who still desire to ethnically cleanse the “blue meanies” of opposers to their political agendas in the name of peace, love and happiness. Members of the 1960s SDS/Weather Underground, Bernardine Dohrn, Mark Rudd, Bill Ayers and Jeff Jones have all served in giving advice within the President Obama administration. Frances Fox Piven, involved with the 1960s SDS, now advises the direction of the Occupy Movement.

Ron Paul says: “Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies.” That has never been more true as now. He also quotes Psalms 120: 6-7, “Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I AM FOR PEACE but when I speak, THEY ARE FOR WAR.”

Barnabas was cursed by Angelique, making him a good guy who was cursed to do evil things. Angelique was evil, but so dang tempting and seductive, and those eyes of hers–mama mia! Anyway, in Dark Shadows, people acted contrary to their inner goodness, and people without goodness may have succeeded for awhile, but they ultimately got their just desserts.

Angelique (Mama mia!)

Burton and Depp were major fools to choose to make clowns of these characters instead of relating their fictional otherworldly existence to the reality of the otherwordly existence of the late 1960s and then to take it a step further to our current otherworldly existence in this most bizarre (and deja vu) election year of 2012. (Perhaps they’re cowards to appear “politically incorrect”–or worse…)

Just like Barnabas and Angelique, fated lovers, here we are again in a battle of lies, deceits and struggles for worldly power, eternal power–or eternal death.

But, there will be no eternal rest for Barnabas:

131 disc (1225 episodes) Complete Series (1966-1971) in nickel-hinged coffin case. Spines of DVD cases when lined up in box show image of Barnabas lying in the casket: Includes Jonathan Frid’s autograph: $431.99.

. . . There is a strange similarity between Heaven and hell: . . . Each morning my damned say, “This is another day!” But they discover that it is the same as the day before. In Heaven, there is no time. Surely that is a greater weariness. My damned do not attain, for there is nothing to attain. Your holy souls do not attain, for total attainment is not possible. The soul strains, whether in Heaven or hell. If there is a singular difference I have yet to discern it. . . . But if even archangels are not to know its supreme secrets, wherein lies the satisfaction? To know that one can never know all appears to me, at times, to be hell, itself. At least my damned know all there is to know of hell, and my nature. There are no hidden corners, and if there are no fresh delights there are no fresh mysteries and no terrors, however sublime. This condition has always seemed the most desirable among men — and have I not given it to them?

There is an answer for every question in hell. My demons are solicitous. No soul asks without a reply. If the reply is mundane and possesses no novelty — did not man wish that for himself during the time of his mortal life? Nothing affrights these miserable wretches more than a hint that a strangeness is about to appear, yet they bewail — after a space — the sameness of hell. On all their worlds they struggle for the very condition they find in my hells — no disturbing variety, no uncertainty, no danger, no test of courage, no challenge, and no enigmas. They considered this the most marvelous of existences. Once assured of it in hell, however, they are agonized. I have always said that human souls were pusillanimous [lacking courage] and blind, and contradictory.

Certainly, in hell, there is no free will, for the damned relinquished it on their worlds. This torment has been denied them by me. Therefore, they cannot will to climb to Heaven by self-denial, by contemplation, by worship, by dedication, by acts of faith and charity. These attributes shriveled in them during their lives, or were rejected scornfully by them in moods of risible sophistications. They can desire to possess them now, but I would keep them safe and warm, as Our Father never kept them so! So, they can will nothing. They can only accept the pleasures — and the pains — I bestow on them.

In Heaven, however, free will is fully released. The ability to reject, to deny, remains with archangels, angels and the souls of the saved. The gift of repudiation is still with them and the possibility of disobedience. Is that not most frightful? What insecurity! What danger! My damned remain with me in eternal slavery because in life they desired only safety, and lacked the fire of adventure, though, God knows, they protested enough on their worlds! But what did they protest? Inequality, which is the variety of God. Instability, which is the light of the universes. Uneasiness of mind, which is the soul of philosophy. Apparent injustices, which are the goad of the spirit. Vulnerability to life and other men, which is a charge to become invulnerable through faith in God. The presence of suffering or misfortune — but these are a call for the soul to put on armor and serenity. They demanded of their rulers that they remain in constant cocoons, silky and guarded by earthly authority. They did not ask for wings to soar into the sunlight, and the ominous threats of full existence. They rejected freedom for hell. Certainly, they cried for freedom on their worlds, but it was freedom only to live happily without the freedom to be divinely unhappy.

I have satisfied all these lusts of men. Strange, is it not, that my hells, though the ultimate success of the dreams of men, are filled with weeping? And strange, is it not, that they still do not believe in the existence of God? But then, they never did; they believed only in me. They cannot will to believe in God. They see absolute reality about them now, which was their will in life. I will not pretend that I do not understand them, for was it not I who promised them all without work and without striving?

But lately I asked of a newly descended soul which had much acclaim on Terra: “What was your greatest desire on your world, you who were applauded by rulers and admired by your fellowmen?

He replied, “Justice for all,” and put on a very righteous expression.

That was admirable, for who does not admire justice, even I? But I probed him. He declared that in his earthly view all men deserved what all other men possessed, whether worthy or not. “They are men, so they are equal, and being born they have a right to the fruits of the world, no matter the condition of their birth or the content of their minds, or their capacities.” I conducted him through the pleasures of my hell, and he was delighted that no soul was lesser in riches than another, and that every soul had access to my banquets and my palaces, no soul was distinguishable from another, none possessed what another did not possess. Every desire was immediately gratified, he discovered. He smiled about him joyfully. He said, “Here, justice is attained!”

Then he saw that no face was joyful, however mean or lofty its features. He remarked, wonderingly, on the listlessness of my damned, and how they strolled emptily through thoroughfares filled with music and through streets wherein there was not a single humble habitation. He heard the cries of pleasure over my laden tables, and then heard them silenced, for there was no need now for food and where there is no need there is no desire and no enjoyment. He saw that the poorest on earth were clothed in magnificence and jewels, yet they wept the loudest. He was no fool. He said, “Satiety.” [Satisfied to excess.] True, I answered him, but satiety can live only in the presence of total equality. He pondered on this while I led him to the seat of thousands of philosophers, and he sat down among them. But, as there is no challenge in hell, and no mystery, there can be no philosophy. That night he came to me on his knees and begged for death. I struck him with my foot, and said, “O man, this was the hell you made, and this was the desire of your heart, so eat, drink, and be merry.”

He attempted to hang himself, in the manner of Judas, and I laughed at his futility. I meditated that above all futility is the climate of hell.

He said to me, in tears, “Then, if you are, then God exists.”

“That does not follow,” I replied to him. “But, did you not deny Him on Terra? Did you not speak of supra-man, and man-becoming, and the ultimate glorification of man on earth, without God?”

“I did not see God among men,” he said, wringing his hands.

“You did not look,” I said. “You were too dull in your human arrogance and too enamored of humanity. You never denounced your fellows for their lusts and their cruelties. You told them they were only ‘victims.’ You refused to look upon their nature, for you denied the infinite variety and capacities of nature. To you, one man was as good as any other man, and equally endowed, for the foolish reason that he had been born. You saw no saints, and no sinners. It was only a matter of environment, though the proof was all about you that environment is a mere shading or tint on the soul, and is not destiny. You denied that men have gifts of the spirit, often above those of other men. In truth, you denigrated those gifts of striving and wonder. You denied free will. Everything evil that happened to a man was only the result of his fellowmen’s lack of justice. You denied the reality of good and evil, the ability to make a choice. In short you denied life, itself.”

“Then God in truth does exist?” he asked, after a moment’s miserable thought.

“That you will never know,” I said. “But rejoice! All your dreams are fulfilled here. Delight yourself. Behold, there are beautiful female demons here, and banquets and sports and pleasures and soft beds and lovely scenes and all whom you had wished, in life, you had known. Converse with them.”

“There is no desire in me,” he said. “I want nothing.”

“You are surely in hell,” I replied, and I left him weeping.

God pursues them even in hell. Or, does He, my beloved Michael? Grief is the gift of God. But He will not have my damned! For they have no will to rise to Him. . . .

But let us speak of your new worlds, which you mentioned in your last letter.

Pandara, among the dozen about the enormous and fiery blue sun, interests me. Our Father struck six women and six men from the jeweled dust, and gave them the Sacrament of marriage. I must congratulate God, for these creatures are fairer than many others. Their flesh resembles rosy alabaster, and their hair is bright and sparkling, and their eyes are green and full of light. They will have eternal youth if they do not fall. They frolic and work in the warm and turquoise radiance, where there are no seasons because Pandara moves upright in her long slow orbit about her parent sun. There will be no fierceness of storm or calamities of nature — unless these creatures fall. There will be joyous labor and eager participation in life, and life without end in the forests full of red and purple and golden flowers, and about the lucent rivers and the mother-of-pearl lakes. There will be cities of song and learning. There will be adventure and delight. I have seen the red peaks of mountains, and the dawns like benedictions and the sunsets like Heaven, itself. There is no disease here, no hunger, no sorrow, no pain, no death. There is knowledge of God, and God moves among them, and they feel His presence and His love.

Alas, God has also endowed them with free will.

That is my opportunity.

The women and the men are as young as life. I can bring them age and evil and disease and death and violence and hatred and lusts. Six women, and six men. What shall I do?

Shall I introduce a seventh man, my Damon, who seduced so many on other worlds, and on miserable Terra, where he seduced Eve and Helen of Troy and millions of other women? He is a beautiful angel, full of gaiety and subtlety and delectabilities. His conversations are absorbing and delicious. His inventions of the flesh are luscious and charming; his concupiscences [sexual desires] are sweeter than any fruit. Few women have ever rejected him. His very touch, his smile, is beguiling, and he is all that is male. How can any woman resist him?

If introduced on Pandara the women will reflect that he is far more beautiful than their husbands, and that he does not toil in the fields and that his discourses are wondrous and mysterious, and that he hints of joys they have never experienced before. Sad, is it not, that even Our Father stands at bay before a woman? Who can know the intricacies of a female heart, and its secret imaginings? Damon knows these intricacies, and winds them about his fingers like silver or darksome threads. He can persuade almost any woman into adultery.

It needs but Damon to destroy Pandara.

Or, perhaps, I will send Lilith, my favorite female demon, to the men of Pandara, that beautiful planet. She seduced Adam and Pericles and Alexander and Julius Caesar and so many rulers on Terra now. Who is so lovely as Lilith? Once she graced the Courts of Heaven and all looked on her beauty with awe. She has a thousand astounding forms, and each one more gorgeous than another. She is never oppressive, never demanding. She is yielding and soft and attentive. She follows; she never leads. When she speaks her voice is like celestial music. Each attitude resembles a stature of sublime glory. She says to men, “How wondrous you are, how unique, how intellectual, how far above me in understanding!” She is femininity itself, easily conquered, easily overcome by flattery, easily induced to surrender. She has only to beckon and men rush to her with cries of lust and desire.

Damon or Lilith?

Strange to remark, men are less susceptible to determined seduction than women. Damon can offer women mysteries and endless amusement, and what woman can spurn mystery or amusement? They love the secret dark places, the moon, the whispered hotness, the promise of uniqueness and adoration. Women do not crave power; they are not objective. Truth to them is relative. Is this evil or good? Women in their minds can create a confusion, and this, on so many worlds, they have bequeathed to their sons. A woman can resolve all things in her mind and make so many splendid compromises. If the women of Pandara look upon Damon there will be rivalries for his smiles and attention, the lonely male they will yearn to take to their breasts when their husbands are absent. There is a certain doggedness in husbands which women find full of ennui.

On the other hand, there is Lilith, who is always ambiguous and never captured. Men seek after the uncaptured, the unattainable, which, alas, is the climate of Heaven. Lilith is always pursued but never caught. What man can resist Lilith, who never argues, never complains, is always complaisant and always fresh and dainty? Her conversation never demands that a man ponder, or question. Men, I have discovered, detest women who pose challenges of the mind and the soul. They are engrossed in the flesh to the deepest extent, therefore they are simple, however their pretensions to intellect. They dislike women who ask “Why?” They turn from women with serious faces and furrowed brows. They wish only to play, to gratify themselves in moments of leisure. They find their wives always at hand, and women’s conversation is usually concerned with children and the dull affairs of daily living. The women say, “How are the crops, or the cattle? How is our present treasure?”

But Lilith says, “Let us frolic and rejoice in the sun and weave garlands of roses and drink wine and laugh and discover comedies. Above all, let us embrace each other.” This is the exact opposite of the conversation of wives, and so is irresistible.

Too, women are sedulous [persevering] in the seeking of God, which is the other side of their nature. Men can endure just so much of God, and just so much discussion of Him. After that, they seek love and physical activity or their little philosophies. Or sleep. Men love slumber, though women resist it. Man reasons, woman conjectures. Therefore, man wearies first. He is always yawning in the very midst of feminine discourse.

Considering this, I believe Damon will be the most potent in Pandara, as he was in the majority of worlds. Women do not fall lightly. Eve gave much thought before she ate of the Forbidden Tree. (Adam was merely vaguely aware of it, and, as it was forbidden, he usually ignored it. Men are slaves to law.) Damon adores the struggle in the female spirit, for while seductible it thinks of God. Lilith often complains that men are so easily the victims of their flesh, so there is no serious enticement, no arduous pursuit. In concupiscence, men never think of God at all.

I shall send Damon, the beautiful, the most alluring of male demons.

(If I seem contradictory concerning the nature of humanity . . . Michael, it does not follow that I am inconsistent. I have written that men are less susceptible than women to seduction, but that is on the score of sensibility. A woman cannot be seduced by raw sensuality; her mind and spirit must be engaged also, and she must be convinced that in some fashion the purity of love is involved. She must feel the wings of her soul expand, so that all is well lost for love, itself. It takes on itself, in her mind, the aspect of the eternal, the immutable. So, women are an excitement to Damon. But the purely female, like Lilith, cannot be resisted by men, who see nothing eternal in marital love, nothing sanctified, however the words they repeated by rote. A woman is just an encounter to a man. She can be successfully resisted only if she is intelligent and only if she asks questions, and only if she demands that the situation be permanent. Woman must be seduced through her most delicate emotions. Man alone can be seduced if no spiritual emotions are present at all. Damon was forced to converse with Eve to the point of exhaustion before she ate of the fruit which was forbidden. Had Lilith approached Adam, the deliciousness of the fruit would have needed only to be described. . . .

Yes, my choice will be Damon. He will be elegant to the women of Pandara. He will not openly seduce. He will treat them as equals, yet not so equal that it diminishes his masculine power. He will declare that their souls and their minds entrance him, that above all women they are the most ravishing. He will talk poetry with them hour after hour; he will never be bored, as husbands are bored. He will indicate the beauties on their world, and will strike attitudes, but not effeminate ones. He will tenderly entwine flowers in their bright hair. He will kiss their hands, and show his muscles at the same time. If they leap with enjoyment, he will leap higher. He will pursue, and offer them ardent embraces. He will discuss their natural problems with them, with manly indulgence. If they become pettish, in the way of women, he will seize them in his strong arms and quiet their mouths with his own. At the last, as if tired of play, he will lift them up and run with them to some silent glade and forcibly take them, ignoring their hypocritical cries and their beating hands. Above all, he will pretend that they, themselves, seduced him with their beauty and reduced him to distraction. What woman can believe that she is without allurement, either of the body or the mind?

I am sad for you, Michael, my brother. Pandara is already lost. I am sending Damon tonight to the women of your beautiful planet. I will reserve Lilith for later, when the race is fallen. She will convince men that lust is more delightful than reason, and feminine charms more to be desired than sanctity, or duty. The flesh, she will say, has its imperative, but where is the imperative of the soul — if it exists at all? The flesh is tangible and lovely. Who would forego it for the transports of the spirit? The man who would do that, she will inform her victims, is no man at all and is not potent.

In short, he is a eunuch. What man does not believe that with a perceptive woman he will be forever virile, despite age or change? Lilith will introduce man to perversions and to atrocities. She will guide him into cruelties which women can never imagine. She will cloud his mind. She will darken his soul against God, while he basks in her arms.

I anticipate Pandara and her sister worlds, for they are now inhabited with a new race, fairer and more intelligent than Terra, among others. Terra, in particular, has always had a certain and sickening mediocrity of intellectual climate, now stimulated by those who designate themselves as “intellectuals.” Terra dutifully conforms to what her race calls non-conformity. Rare has been the man in her history who was truly individual, and those men were either murdered for their purity of soul or, in despair at the race, became its glorious assassins. In general, the history of Terra has been stupid if frightful, predictable if dreadful. The souls of Terra which descend to me give even hell disagreeable moments, for they are ciphers. Yet, on the other hand, they form a special torment to those souls from other worlds who are more intellectually endowed, and it is very amusing. The men from other worlds have even, in hell, attempted to lift up the intelligence of the men of Terra, to no avail, but to much comedy for my demons. There have been desperate but fruitless classes in the sciences and the arts for the men of Terra, and they have always failed, and there have been cries, “These souls are not truly human! They are impermeable! True, but I always discourage such outcries with the formula of “democracy.” This ritualistic word silences the souls of other worlds, if it tortures them, for was it not their own invention?

My dear brother. In the golden twilight of Pandara I visited your magnificent planet. There I discovered you in a great purple garden, conversing with Our Father, and your voice was full of laughter and gaiety and innocent abandon, for you were rejoicing in the beauty of where you found yourself and were exchanging jests with Him. . . . I did not see Our Father, but He saw me. I felt His majestic presence, and I covered my face with my wings. But still, I knew His penetrating eyes and how can I bear them, so full of reproach and sorrow? It is not my fault. He does not understand, and, alas, it is possible that He never will. He did not speak to me, but He spoke to you, and I heard your voices and your mirth. The green dolphins of the seas appeared to be amusing you.

I have had another thought: When Pandara has fallen I will send one of my favorite demons to her, whose name is Triviality. You know him well. You have seen him in his activity on thousands of planets, and he is more deadly than Damon and Lilith combined. . . .

You have written that you are more merciful than Our Father, for you would have denied man immortal life. You would also have denied him Heaven. You would have denied him the one thing which makes him higher than the other animals on all the other worlds besides Terra: free will. Better it is for a man even to be damned than to be without that awesome gift! At least he had his choice. That alone gives him dignity, whether in Heaven or in hell, and in spite of all your efforts, my poor brother, you cannot deprive the damned of dignity. They share your immortal existence, and for that you cannot forgive them. They have their garment of eternal life.

Even a damned soul who grieves for what he lost is more than a body which expires with the breath. . . .

I look upon the constant striving in Heaven with pleasure and affection. There is a perpetual coming and going of angels and the souls of the saved with news of new planets and universes and the wonders upon them. There is endless laughter and excitement and exchange of opinion and conjecture. Was it not the Christ who said that human ear has not heard and human eye has not seen the marvels which God has prepared for those who love Him?

Do I need to recall to you the aspect of Heaven? Eternal noon, but not an unchanging noon. No vista remains the same. No vision of the eye is static. The only constant is love between angel and man and God and angel and God and man. All else changes, and always there is anticipation and work. Work is not an affliction, as human hearts believe it is. When God “condemned” man to work He bestowed the next holiest gift after free will. Labor is prayer and achievement, and the uncertainty of the achievement. Beauty is always in the process of becoming, but is never fully attained. Joy is in the next turning, but the next turning promises greater joy. Love is never completely satisfied in Heaven, except for the surety of the Love of God. It strains forever, and happily, after greater fulfillments.

If a soul is weary after its sojourn on any of the worlds, it may rest in green shadows and peace until its weariness is spent. Then it must engage in the work of God, which is never completed. It so engages with eagerness and with a pleasure that is never satisfied. Does a soul desire to create marvelous sunsets or dawns on any world? It is given into its hands, for the greater glory of God. The soul paints the skies with the calm and stately morning or the pensive quietude of evening. It colors the flowers of the field and gives the grain its gold. If it is concerned with wonders that baffled it in life, then it pursues the answer to the wonders and it becomes luminous with satisfaction when the answer is finally perceived. But still other wonders beckon it on, and tantalize it.

Was a soul without the love of men on the worlds and did it languish for that love? It is poured into its immortal hands in Heaven and is appeased. Did it hope on the earths that it would see the faces of the lost beloved? It so sees and knows that never again can there be parting or ennui with love, itself. Did it long for children to embrace, when children were denied? Its arms are rich with children in Heaven. Was it homeless before its ascent? It can create for itself the home of its lost dreams, whether humble or a palace. Did it desire to serve God to the utmost while in flesh, yet could not fulfill that desire? The fulfilment is its own, ranging the endless universes and inspiring the sorrowful and lifting up the hearts of the sad and soothing the pain of the innocent, and bringing good news to those who dwell in darkness. It can whisper in the winds and bring knowledge in the twilights and hope in the dawns. Each soul that it helps save and bring safely to God is an occasion for triumph, and its fellows triumph with it.

All of which a man innocently dreamed in flesh is his at home, whether simple or magnificent. Best of all he grows in accomplishment. Always, there is the divine discontent, and never the security of hell. Always, angels and men must strive in Heaven. There is not one congregation, for in congregations there is conformity and the soul cannot exist in sameness. Each soul is an individual, and resembles no other, and serves as no other. It serves its own need, and God is its need, and though it attains God it never fully envelops or knows Him. There is its most splendid dissatisfaction, its happiness. For what is completely possessed is a weariness. Victory is nothing when victory is entirely attained. You have seen the misery of conquerors on all the worlds, when there was nothing else to conquer. But none conquers in heaven save God, and who knows if He fully conquers?

Above all, in Heaven, there is no exhaustion, no tiredness of spirit, no repletion. There is eternal youth, and endless speculation. You have said that love is passive. If it is, then it is not love at all, but only selfish desire or a momentary engrossment. It is peaceful, and that is true, but it is not the peace of death. It is surety, but still it is not the surety of the grave. It must eternally be sought and eternally found, with new aspects and new delights. The music of Heaven is the voices of those who have seen a new face in love and marvel that they had not seen it before.

The City of God is not like unto your city, O Lucifer, for there is no gross pleasure in it, no obscene appetites. All that was beautiful and beguiling and enchanting on the worlds is greatly magnified in heaven, and always changing, offering new enticements. It is never the same, while it is always the same. You will scornfully say again that that is a paradox, but there is infinite delight in paradoxes. Only Absolutes are rigid, and rigidity is the true death of the spirit. But one Absolute reigns in Heaven and the planets, and that is the Absolute of God’s love. All else moves with the soul and is part of it. One veil is lifted but to reveal another veil of an even more enthralling color. Pursuit of the unattainable is the climate of Heaven.

There is no end of knowledge in Heaven, no end of learning. The soul pursues new knowledge and learns forever. It does not stand like a marble image confronting changelessness. Its face is eternally lit with the fires and the colors of new universes and new aspirations and new adventures. It clamors to know. Yet, it can never know completely, and that is its reward. God is like an earthly father who constantly places new riddles before his children, and smiles as they eagerly guess its secrets and learn its answers. There are always new books to read, new wonders to excite the imagination, new vistas to explore.

When you were in Heaven you declared that this finally wearied you, for, you said, Heaven was like a ball of silk which was never fully unwound and there was no hope of the unwinding. In short, you wished to make Heaven a hell, where there is absolute fulfillment, and there is nothing more to be attained. A state of stasis is surely hell, as you have discovered to your sorrow. You wished to sleep, you said, and you rested on your great white wings of light, but you did not sleep. You wished to peer and understand that which is not understandable, even by archangels. You desired the ultimate. Alas, Lucifer, you have attained it. Your city resounds with success. Why, then, are you not content?

Today new worlds in time were born about one of my largest stars in my Galaxy. You will, without doubt, visit them and attempt to corrupt their people. I pray that you will fail, not only for the sake of God but for your own sake.

GREETINGS to my brother, Michael, who is very tender and brave but, alas, most naive:

. . . If my entry into heaven must be accompanied by the souls of men, then I prefer my hells. At least there I torment my insulters and the insulters of Our Father, and that is an exuberant delight, one, I fear, you will never know.

Delight! Most assuredly! It is a joy which I cannot explain in words you would understand. Sufficient it is to say that I play with those souls as they played with their victims, and with the same mercilessness, only a thousand times enhanced. When they beseech me for pity I listen with ecstasy to their cries. Beasts, animals! To think that they, too, possess immortal life! They grovel before me and clutch my garments and I spurn them with my foot. Sometimes I admit a few of their wisest to my dark tabernacle and converse with them for the pleasure of listening to their stupidity, their arrant foolishness. Often I summon the great among them and urge them to speak of their fame on Terra, and it is an enormous amusement. They say to me, “I did not believe in you, nor in God, yet you manifestly are,” and they marvel. I conjure their lies before them and I say, “There was I, in that apparition, when you planned this — or that — and you heard my voice and took rapture in it. Why did you hearken to me, beast of beasts?” They answer, falling before my face, “I believed in nothing but myself and my own grandeur and my own will.” But they believed in me.

They repent. But it is too late. They came to me, not through august sins which at least possess a measure of grandeur and imagination, but through sins so mean and contemptible that they are below the comprehension of the lowest of creatures on Terra. The serpent in the forest is not as poisonous as man, the rabid bat is not as mad and loathsome, the toothed shark is not so foul a scavenger, For none of these can lie. That is the prerogative of man only. Man always takes on the aspect of the serpent, the bat and the shark, and their habits. He is more dreadful than these, for he lacks their innocence and he knows what he does and he does it with enthusiasm and passion, It is through his lies that man comes to me, his lies of the flesh and the spirit, for untruth is a perversion and man is a pervert. He is the incarnation of the lie which is myself, and all the evil that he does is his corruption of truth.

. . .

My demons look upon the bountiful harvests of the souls of men who swarm through my fiery portals each hour, and they look with revulsion, for never, even among demons, was ever a spirit so malicious, so embued with hatred for his fellows, as the spirit of man. In his life on Terra he prates of love and esteems it with his tongue as the greatest of virtues. Yet never was a creature so loveless in his heart even when announcing love to the heavens. He crowds before the altars he has raised to God, and the lie nestles in his flesh, and the repudiation and disbelief, and even when he cries “Hosannah!” he chuckles in secret at his own perfidy. He loves that perfidy. He believes it gives him intellectual stature. He looks upon the crucified Lord and it needs no whisper from me to make him speak in his spirit and deny. He has many arguments, and they amuse him.

Not all men, you would say. Michael, Michael! That miserable little stream which flows to heaven is hardly a trickle compared with the great river that pours down to me!

You have not seen their appalled faces when they encounter me, who greet them thus: “Welcome to your spiritual home, you who have denied all things!” Still, it is very strange. Though they did not believe in Our Father, they truly believed in me, though they did not know it. You serve only that in which you believe, with knowledge or without knowledge. They would have been amazed to encounter you, Michael, and would have marveled. But they do not marvel at me. They recognize me at once. They have seen my face countless times, and they know all my lineaments. Nor is hell unfamiliar to them. They created a mirage of it on Terra, and they know every alley, every darksome passage, every icy lake, every mountain of fire, every gloomy shadow, every city of death, every pool of corruption. For while I established my hells, it was man who lifted up the walls and established the noisome places and lit the fires and froze the waters. It is, therefore, no mystery that he recognizes every path and sits down in his chosen spot to weep and repent. He built the house in which he dwells. At least, that is a species of freedom, for man did not build heaven. For in participation there is liberty, and complete liberty reigns in hell. Have I not said it through the ages! You have called my creatures slaves but slaves do not build to their design, and men build the designs of the infernos. It is by God’s Grace when man reaches heaven, and not by his merits, and so perhaps not even his will. But men will to dwell with me, and where there is will there is freedom. Has not Our Father declared that, Himself? He is the Paradox of paradoxes.

There are no contradictions in hell. There are no wonders, for everything in hell is familiar to the souls of men. There is the complete security which men have always craved on Terra, but which Our Father lovingly denies them, for God is the Creator of infinite and opposing variety, delicious contrast, innocent comicalities, awesome inequalities, enchanting absurdities, paradoxes, fearsome challenges, exciting uncertainties. This, I admit, stimulates color and splendor and merriment and marvelings and stern beauties and liveliness and trembling anticipations. But in hell there is nothing to anticipate; there is no variety, there is no insecurity. There are pain and boredom, and boredom is the most monstrous of punishments. Beside it, pain is a relief, so, despite the rumors of the ignorant on Terra, there is little pain in my hells except for futile regret. There is no future, yet there is time. Endless time, and endless sameness.

The pious in Terra speak only of the agonies of hell, and they exist for they are pleasure. Have they seen my glorious cities, bewitching, extravagant? They are filled with the delights of Terra, but immeasurably enhanced. Millions, newly arrived, look upon them with eagerness and smiles, and rush to inhabit them. The lavish city in which I live is a city that lived in the hot imaginations of men, filled with every satisfaction of their vile hearts, every concupiscent lust of their flesh, every dream of their envious hearts. There are glittering houses heaped with gleaming treasures, and ballrooms and arenas and theaters and stadia, and shops to make any merchant weep with greed, and towering castles of every perversion and streets of magnitude filled with music, and tables everywhere crowded with saucy viands and bottomless vessels of wine, and demons to be slavish lackeys. There are vistas of heroic mountains like alabaster, and sparkling forests vibrating with song and valleys lush as velvet and rivers like gilt. Here souls of the damned are free to come and go, to sport, to converse, to play, to partake of all my captivations. They are free to argue their childish controversies, to engage in the pursuits that enthralled them on Terra, to discuss strange things with the inhabitants of worlds of which they never dreamed, to invent new theories and excited hypotheses, to “seduce” beautiful female demons. There is not an alluring vice that is denied them, not a passion which is not immediately gratified. Ah, I tell you, Michael, they often mistake hell for heaven at first!

But pleasure never changes in hell, never diminishes, can never aspire to greater diversions such as exalted meditation and reflection; never knows an end. Nothing is withheld; there is no struggle; there are no heart-burnings, no room for ambition and achievement. All is equal; all is accessible to every soul. There is no applause, for no soul exceeds another in stature. No face is different from any other face, nothing is unique or creative or deserving of acclaim. No soul is worthy, for all are worthless. Each is clad in the robes of doom — unchanging uniformity. Where one soul cannot excel another in any fashion ennui results and a mysterious terror, for God created all souls to strive and excel and thus be free and develop priceless individuality. But, it is my democracy.

At last, in despair and desperate boredom, my doomed pray for the less attractive portions of my sovereignty, where there is pain, and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Grief, at the final hour, becomes more desirable than pleasure, for it has endless ramifications. At the last I can engage these damned in my service — the seduction of souls yet living on Terra. At least there is some excitement in this! Envy and hatred and resentment are enlisted in my employ, for who of the damned can rejoice to see a soul escape him? What rejoicings there are in hell when more of the corrupted fall into the pit! If the Heavenly Hosts are joyous when a soul is saved, how much more are the damned joyous when a soul falls! Do not ask me why. Did I create man? His perverted mind often makes me recoil with disgust. You would say I perverted him. No, I only tempt.

With what glee my damned introduce the newly doomed to my hells! They look upon their dismayed faces and hug themselves with rapture. They peer for tears, and drink them avidly. They take the newly doomed by the hand and shout with happiness at the recoiling when horrors are confronted. This is the only satisfaction in hell, and it is a satisfaction most deeply encouraged.

Eventually, they all crave death and extinction. I am more compassionate than Our Father. I would often give them true death. But Our Father cursed them with eternal life, and so who is, in truth, the most merciless? God cannot withdraw from His own Law, therefore He cannot rescue my damned. When He gave immortality to man, did He know to what He had condemned him? Alas, alas, there are times when I would grant them death. Is your question then not answered? I am no Paradox, as is Our Father. Had I created man — God forbid! I should not have given him the free will to be damned if he desired. I should have made him obedient and docile, a gay little creature who could not know the difference between good and evil and therefore could have had no life but one brief day in the sun. I should have made him truly mortal, like a mayfly who takes pleasure in the noon and at sunset folds his wings and drifts into dust.

You once told me that hell is hell because no love can dwell there, and love is impossible. That is true. But love is passive and hatred is active, and man is always active like an insect which can never be still. Therefore, Michael, I shall win at last, for man is invariably enthusiastic and zealous, and languishes only when there is nothing to hate.

I have read your letter with sorrow, for I know the anguish of your spirit. I, too, remember you, and your grand appearance and the glory of your presence. How is it possible, I often ask myself, for poor men to resist you, who are so many apparitions, all of them seductive? So small a foe, man! So helpless, so feeble, so confused, so blind, so dejected, so little! I look upon him and weep. The wonder to me is not that he has often rejected and blasphemed God, but that he has remembered Him so long, despite the scorners and the philosophers and the erudite scholars. The wonder to me is not that he resists the tender blandishments of the Lord in such multitudes, but that so many men — though you would deny this — hold Him so preciously to their hearts and adore His Name daily after their death, and they turn from you as they turned from you in life, and they fly like radiant birds to the bosom of their Lord.

You would scornfully call this “simplicity.” But virtue is simple and easily understood. It is only evil that is complex, complicated, twisted in all its ways, and devious. Virtue is a stream of bright water going faithfully to the sea. But evil winds through many passages and gorges and chasms, and it takes on many intricate colors and hides itself in alien caverns. Evil has a thousand conversations and uncountable perverse rituals. It is a thousand undisciplined wheels within a wheel, all zealously spinning. Life, on the contrary, is direct and without guile, and has no arguments, for Life is, and there can be no argument in the presence of order. Evil lives in a multitude of philosophies and controversies and conjectures and speculations. It attempts, always, to argue Life out of existence, and is triumphant only where there is nothingness. In short, it is death.

There is, in evil men, the will to die, to be absolved from the burden of being, to be rescued from seeking an answer — though the answer is so plain and so unequivocal. Evil seeks absolution from the necessity to accept. It shares one thing in common with virtue — the desire for adherents. Man cannot live alone, either in virtue or in evil. As virtue cannot tolerate the vile, neither can the vile tolerate the just. One must perish. You will say that evil is always victorious. No, not always, for does Life not endure? Life cannot exist in the presence of death and midnight cannot be while the suns shine.

The poor men on Terra shout passionately, “Life is not lucid! There is no simplistic answer to being! Life is complicated and involved and has many faces, and who can say which face is reality?” But Life has only one Face, in truth, and that is the Face of God, and before Him there is no torturous path, no concealed passages, no multitude of answers, no confusion, no “This is the way, but on the other hand, this may be the way also.” Man’s mind, assisted by yours, becomes a hive of cells, each with a contradictory life entombed, each with an individual insistence, each with a different clamoring voice, each with a refuting reply. Only in the pure honey of truth is there one flow of sweetness, and there is naught so simple as honey.

Our Father does not dwell in the labyrinthine places. He lives in the sun where there is no concealment. But defiled in soul by you, man exclaims, “Where is God? I do not see Him! All is darkness. He has asked me, in this darkness, to be docile and accept as simply as does the beast of the field, or an infant in arms and at its mother’s breast.”

Yet the Lord has said so plainly, “You must be as children, to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.” Children do not question obliquely and in large words and in erudite phrases, nor do they accept the words of the old wise and reject the evidence that is before them. They see clearly and in whole, and not obscurely and in part.

You have told man that he has reason, and therefore he is like unto the gods and is aware of good and evil. But you have shown him only his own passions and his own desires and have urged him not to refuse them but to gratify them, for are they not his inherent nature? His reason is perverted by his intimate lusts, which you stimulate, and tempt in delectable form. He has no merit of his own, but only those merits granted by the Grace of God. Instinctively, in childhood, man recognizes this. It is only with learning that he glorifies that which he calls his “reason.” So sad a little creature, so worthy of mercy, in his helplessness! The wisest of the men of Terra are the most stupid, the most refractory, the most blinded. But, are they the wise in truth? No, they are the most absolutely dumb and null. Only the simple are wise in all the ways of wisdom, for when they ask they perceive the answer, and immediately. You have called this infantile, and men have listened to you through the ages. The spiral to them is fascinating and the more it curves about itself the more delighted they are, and they call it subtlety. The straight way is jejune to their contorted spirits. It lacks sophistication. Sad little man, strutting on his dung-heap and crowing defiantly at the sun as it rises, and often believing that without his crow the sun would not come up at all! At the worst, he is convinced that his dung-heap is the center of the universe and that the beat of his wings is heard to the farthest star.

Yet, Our Father chose to take on the flesh of this miserable small creature, this blind little mouse, this impudent manikin. This has angered and insulted you, as you have said so often through the eons. But God did not do this to torment you, as you say. He does not inflict suffering on His children. He had His reasons. You have written that if He does not erase the memory of man from all the planets, not only Terra, you will do it. That cannot be, unless He wills that you have your will. It is true that He sank ancient continents of Terra below the waters, and you exulted that the race was destroyed. But he rescued a few, and raised up other continents for their life and fertility and their ultimate hope. Your thunderbolts did not destroy the ark as it rose and fell on the vast and landless seas, nor were the inhabitants affrighted. It was not the will of Our Father that they be lost, but that they have life. There may come a day when God shall will that you have your way, but that day lives only in His mind, and you cannot know it.

You will have no pity. It was absurd of me to ask it, for I know your loathing for this bloody little ball of mud which committed the great crime of Deicide, and continues to commit it. Nevertheless, your very wrath against it gives me heart, for it was out of your love for Our Father that you have found Terra so outrageous. But even if God had chosen Madra, the most beautiful and splendid planet in all the universes, to be born of her, you would still have been fired with anger, for men live on Madra also, and mankind is your curse. You tempted man to fall ten thousand times ten thousand eons ago, and when he fell you fell with him also. He is your anathema as you are his. When he echoes you and blasphemes, it does not rejoice you. You would obliterate him for the very words you taught him! You would kill him for the evils he has embraced, though you invented those evils and filled his arms with them.

It is man’s weakness before you that fills you with fury, yet you touch him with weakness in his mother’s womb. When you say to him, “I am your only god, your only reality,” and he bows before you in worship, you would smite him unto immediate death. Ah, Lucifer, once Star of Morning, you are the very father of man’s incredible infamy, and while you demand his adoration you simultaneously demand that he die!

This is not a marvel to me, you who are a slave of slaves. But it is my sorrow. It is the sorrow of all your brothers also. But, who knows? One fair noon you may arise to the gates of Heaven on the ladder raised by men, and in striking on them you may cry, “Alleluia!”

I’d like to add some comments on a political science subject, with a bit more emphasis on the science–which is not to say the political implications are less important in our present day.

I write a lot, more non-fiction than fiction, but I have written fiction and still have ideas along those lines. I had an idea, about 12-15 years ago, that I have yet to fully develop, which I titled “Without Power.” The premise was that suddenly during morning rush hour, all power goes out around the globe. Wherever you happen to be at the moment, you’re stuck there. Your car won’t work, your cellphone, anything with electronics including microchips won’t work. NPR goes out. Talk radio goes out. BBC is down. Your cigarette-lighter powered shaver goes out during a last-minute cleanup up in the rear-view mirror. So, what do you do? You get out of your car and walk. Where do you walk? Home. How do you survive without communication, conveniences, ease of mobility, all of the things we take for granted? Not just that, but the infrastructure of world power goes out as well. How well is that one going to work out?

One of my thoughts that I never fully researched was how electrical systems would just suddenly go out throughout the world. One early thought was that it would remain unexplained, mysterious and supernatural. The story, instead, would focus on the drama of everyone suddenly being “equaled out.” Struggles for power would form on local and regional levels. What system(s) would develop out of the crisis?

I found out recently, to my surprise, that country-wide power outages are possible, and I thought I would give some resources in case anyone is curious–because, as we all know, if the technology is there, then those who would use it are there. Any naysayers can just check out the villains in Austin Powers or any of the James Bond films:)

I’ve written, on this blog, about some results of fear (“Election Year Fear” and “Goodness Breeds ~ Goodness!”) The full truth is that fear can be a good thing. Generally, it’s true that good has a bad side, and bad has a good side. That’s why the balance of powers between Congress, the President and the Supreme Court is a good thing. Balancing power so that the bad can’t get an edge over the others is a good thing. On a current note, President Obama last night stated that he would seek more power for his executive branch and that he would bypass Congress, if necessary, any time they didn’t agree with his political agenda. This is not a good thing. Let’s say he does consolidate power around the presidency, and then Mitt Romney wins the November election. How well is that one going to work out for Democrats?

Fear is now and has seemingly forever been used politically from every direction as a bad thing, but it’s also a natural, human instinct. If you hear someone walking around your house at night, leaves are rustling around outside when they shouldn’t be, you’re probably going to get up and take a look. It’s natural.

So, the first step to eliminating any fear that develops is that you make yourself aware of what’s really going on outside. Probably a deer or racoon, or a stray dog, and then you can sleep good that night. That’s the same premise here, with the concept of suddenly being “without power.” Awareness is the first step. You know the technology exists. You know there are those who would use it for not-so-good purposes. You’re hearing the leaves rustling outside. Awareness allows you to sleep good each night–or, to take further steps toward your own, your family’s and your friends’ safety.

It’s simply saying that given that this scenario can happen, ask yourself: “What would I do if…?” It’s up to you. My aim here is just toward the awareness part. Or, to give some writers out there a decent story line about this dark premise. NOT! It’s my story. Actually, a thriller, titled “One Second After,” was written in 2009, and has been optioned a second time as a film. (A lesson that when you get an story idea, jump on it. I could have had a book out on the subject ten years ago if I had knuckled down.) The author of the 2009 book, however, is tied as a cowriter of separate books with a prominent politician now running for president, so it’s up to you if you want to check it out.

Here’s where to find the scoop on the technology itself, and its “already-tested” history that dates back to July, 1962. Funny how it usually takes so long for the “little people” to become more aware of what the “big people” have been up to. Makes you wonder what else they’ve hidden up their sleeves since 1962. A lot, I think. As an aside, I was seven years old, almost eight, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union detonated a series of these nuclear EMP devices over the Pacific and the Soviet Union. This was during the Cuban Missile Crisis with John F. Kennedy as president and Nikita Khrushchev as leader of the Soviet Union. Maybe because I’ve always been more on the arts side than the science side, I never became aware of those tests, and the technology, until now.

In testimony before the United States Congress House Armed Services Committee on October 7, 1999, the eminent physicist Dr. Lowell Wood, in talking about Starfish Prime and the related EMP-producing nuclear tests in 1962, stated,

“Most fortunately, these tests took place over Johnston Island in the mid-Pacific rather than the Nevada Test Site, or electromagnetic pulse would still be indelibly imprinted in the minds of the citizenry of the western U.S., as well as in the history books. As it was, significant damage was done to both civilian and military electrical systems throughout the Hawaiian Islands, over 800 miles away from ground zero. The origin and nature of this damage was successfully obscured at the time — aided by its mysterious character and the essentially incredible truth.“

The Starfish Prime Nuclear Testfrom nearly 900 miles away

Although nuclear EMP was known since the earliest days of nuclear weapons testing, the magnitude of the effects of high-altitude nuclear EMP were not known until a 1962 test of a thermonuclear weapon in space called the Starfish Prime test. The Starfish Prime test knocked out some of the electrical and electronic components in Hawaii, which was 897 miles (1445 kilometers) away from the nuclear explosion. The damage was very limited compared to what it would be today because the electrical and electronic components of 1962 were much more resistant to the effects of EMP than the sensitive microelectronics of today. The magnitude of the effect of an EMP attack on the United States, or any similar advanced country, will remain unknown until one actually happens. Unless the device is very small or detonated at an insufficiently high altitude, it is likely that it would knock out the nearly the entire electrical power grid of the United States. It would destroy many other electrical and (especially) electronic devices. Larger microelectronic devices, and devices that are connected to antennas or to the power grid at the time of the pulse, would be especially vulnerable.

. . .

The Starfish Prime test (a part of Operation Fishbowl) was detonated at 59 minutes and 51 seconds before midnight, Honolulu time, on the night of July 8, 1962. (Official documents give the date as July 9 because that was the date at the Greenwich meridian, known as Coordinated Universal Time.) It was considered an important scientific event, and was monitored by hundreds of scientific instruments across the Pacific and in space. Although an electromagnetic pulse was expected, an accurate measurement of the size of the pulse could not be made immediately because a respected physicist had made calculations that hugely underestimated the size of the EMP. Consequently, the amplitude of the pulse went completely off the scale at which the scientific instruments near the test site had been set. Although many of the scientific instruments malfunctioned, a large amount of data was obtained and analyzed in the following months.

When the 1.44 megaton W49 thermonuclear warhead detonated at an altitude of 250 miles (400 km), it made no sound. There was a very brief and very bright white flash in the sky that witnesses described as being like a huge flashbulb going off in the sky. The flash could be easily seen even through the overcast sky at Kwajalein Island, about 2000 km. to the west-southwest.

After the white flash, the entire sky glowed green over the mid-Pacific for a second, then a bright red glow formed at “sky zero” where the detonation had occurred. Long-range radio communication was disrupted a period of time ranging from a few minutes to several hours after the detonation (depending upon the frequency and the radio path being used).

In a phenomenon unrelated to the EMP, the radiation cloud from the Starfish Prime test subsequently destroyed at least 5 United States satellites and one Soviet satellite. The most well-known of the satellites was Telstar I, the world’s first active communications satellite. Telstar I was launched the day after the Starfish Prime test, and it did make a dramatic demonstration of the value of active communication satellites with live trans-Atlantic television broadcasts before it orbited through radiation produced by Starfish Prime (and other subsequent nuclear tests in space). Telstar I was damaged by the radiation cloud, and failed completely a few months later.

. . .

A nuclear EMP attack could come from many sources. A missile launched from the ocean near the coast of the United States, and capable of delivering a nuclear weapon at least a thousand miles inland toward the central United States, would cause problems that would be devastating for the entire country. A thin-cased 100 kiloton weapon optimized for gamma ray production (or even the relatively-primitive super oralloy bomb of more than 56 years ago) detonated 250 to 300 miles above Nebraska, would destroy just about every unprotected electronic device in the continental United States, southern Canada and northern Mexico. Such a weapon would also knock out 70 to 100 percent of the electrical grid in this very large area. Nearly all unprotected electronic communications systems would be knocked out. In the best of circumstances, as completely unprepared for such an event as we are now, reconstruction would take at least three years if the weapon were large enough to destroy large power grid transformers.

The more that preparations are made for an EMP attack, the less severe the long-term consequences are likely to become. In comparative terms, being ready for an EMP attack would not cost a lot, and the benefits would include a much higher reliability of the electrical and electronic infrastructure, even if a nuclear EMP attack never occurred. Adequate preparation and protection could keep recovery time to a month or two, but such preparations have never been made, and few people are interested in making such preparations.

Hardening the electronic and electrical infrastructure of the United States against an EMP attack is the best way to assure that such an attack does not occur. Leaving ourselves as totally vulnerable as we are now makes the United States a very tempting target for this kind of attack.

By not protecting its electrical and electronic infrastructure against nuclear EMP, the United States invites and encourages nuclear proliferation. These unprotected infrastructures allow countries that are currently without a nuclear weapons program to eventually gain the capability to effectively destroy the United States with one, or a few, relatively simple nuclear weapons.

Severe solar storms can cause current overloads on the power grid that are very similar to the slower E3 component of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse. There is good reason to believe that the past century of strong human reliance on the electrical systems has also, fortunately for us, been an unusually quiet period for solar activity. We may not always be so lucky. In 1859, a solar flare produced a geomagnetic storm that was many times greater than anything that has occurred since the modern electrical grid has been in place. We know something about the electrical disruption that the 1859 Carrington event caused because of the destruction it caused on telegraph systems in Europe and North America. Many people who have studied the 1859 event believe that if such a geomagnetic storm were to occur today, it would shut down the entire electrical grid of the United States. It is likely that such a geomagnetic storm would destroy most of the largest transformers (345 KV. and higher) in the electrical grid. Spares for these very large transformers are not kept on hand, and they are no longer produced in the United States. Protection against nuclear EMP is also protection against many kinds of unpredictable natural phenomena that could be catastrophic.